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Embracing Irony

Jeremy Piven, second from left, takes the lead.Credit
Christopher Smith for The New York Times

JEREMY PIVEN is ragged so much on Defamer, the Los Angeles gossip blog, as "Hollywood's most ubiquitous club monkey" and "crown prince of Hollywood's swinging singles scenes" that it is kind of sweet to see him being so generous with the little people at the premiere of his film at the Tribeca Film Festival.

We're talking the really little people, the Scholastic News video team. They were on the carpet on Tuesday night at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square theater for "Keeping Up With the Steins," the Miramax comedy about the angst of throwing the best bar mitzvah party in Brentwood — it has been a sober year at the festival.

Mr. Piven, compact (which is to say short) and animated (which is to say on), gave the Scholastic team the same attention he gave the crew of grown-ups from ABC. Mr. Piven also gives great carpet: good eye contact, personal connection and lots of playful riffs.

"How does it feel to be the main character?" a Scholastic reporter asks.

"It feels good," Mr. Piven says. "I was always No. 47 on the call sheet my whole life and to be No. 1 on the call sheet feels good."

The young reporters, no doubt intuiting that this is a rhetorical question, press on. Working with Garry Marshall and Daryl Hannah, how was that?

"Well, I feel that they're very lucky to be working with me, let's be honest," Mr. Piven says, aware of the print reporter at his shoulder. "That's irony. Irony doesn't print." He repeats it. "Irony doesn't print. It only works in this medium. So I'm winning here, losing there." He points back and forth, from them to the reporter. "WINN-ing. LOOOS-ing."

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On the HBO show "Entourage," Mr. Piven plays an abrasive, fast-talking Hollywood agent. In "Keeping Up With the Steins," he plays an abrasive, fast-talking agent who is estranged from his own father. In the Q. and A. after the premiere, the subject of Mr. Piven's signature phrase comes up.

"I was actually in my temple and my rabbi literally came into the congregation and said, 'Hey, let's hug it out, bitch,' " Mr. Piven says.

That is so L.A.! Even more so than using valet as a verb. Then again, he probably means it as a joke. Just more of that irony that doesn't come across in print.

The party is at Barney Greengrass. You can tell right away it's an observant show biz crowd because there are black yarmulkes lined up on the counter, with the name and date of the party: "Keeping Up With the Steins 5-2-2006." Mr. Piven grabs a table and talks about his own bar mitzvah party and growing up in a theatrical family in suburban Chicago. They didn't have a lot of money, it was in the basement of their house and they had a great time. He still sees the rabbi who officiated, the one he'd mentioned as the one who said, "Let's hug it out, bitch."

So that wasn't just, y'know, irony that we weren't getting?

No.

"My rabbi ended up being one of these weird superstar rabbis," he says. "I had these nightmares he would have his own sitcoms. He has his own congregation in California, his son is an actor, they come to my plays."

So what prompted "Hug it out, bitch?"

"That was just his was of saying, 'Mazel tov,' " he says. "It was a very nice comment."